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Gauging community interest in old Apple/ other computers for sale

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VintagePhoenix

New Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2021
Messages
5
Hey everyone, first post here. So me and my grandad were looking through his attic the other day, and he gave me an old Mac Plus to try out. It worked, and turns out a bunch of his old computers do too. Since he no longer wants them, and I don’t have room for more than 1 vintage pc (though I wish I did), we are thinking of selling them together. Out of curiosity, what would 10-12 working computers from the 70s and early 80s be worth in your opinions? Not selling here but just don’t want to set up an ebay account if they’re worth nothing. They also all have corresponding disks that work in them. Thanks so much for reading!
 
Sounds like a great project with your granddad. Definitely not worth nothing, they've all got some value, depends on the machine. Maybe a list and some pictures would help to get a good estimate? You may find some takers to buy some of them from you directly, save those eBay fees.
 
Yeah it has been really interesting! We’re going to make a better list this afternoon so I’ll post it then. While I see your point with the fees, I’ll probably stick to there for management of the sale, rather than just having some random person paypal me directly. Thanks for replying!
 
Ok I’m back! Schedule shifted a bit due to storms, but heres the list (pictures won’t upload because they’re too large?)
Mac Plus (w/Keyboard and mouse)
Mac Se (w/keyboard and mouse, as well as 800k external drive)
a couple working disks for the macs, including but not limited to comicworks, mac write, and Winter Games.
Power Macintosh (w/extended keyboard)
TRS-80 Level 2
Sony Trinitron Color Tube (not sure what it is or tested yet)
Odyssey 2 with Voice addition
This begins the “probably worth absolutely nothing” category
Pentium 2 MMX slot-in cpu
Vectra VL (is there a more specific model? I forgot to look for it)
Monitors:
Multiscan 400PS
E771
Q41
Ergo 1280
Everything works, but the Mac plus screen dies occaisionally. It just needs a tap to turn on. Thanks so much everybody!
 
VintagePhoenix said:
Ok I’m back! Schedule shifted a bit due to storms, but heres the list (pictures won’t upload because they’re too large?)
Click to expand...

The forums have a ridiculously low file size limit, think early 2000s dialup limits. Postage stamp images are about all you'll get to upload. If you want to have bigger images, upload them elsewhere, like to imgur and use img tags to link to them.

VintagePhoenix said:
Everything works, but the Mac plus screen dies occaisionally. It just needs a tap to turn on. Thanks so much everybody!
Click to expand...

The analog board almost certainly has bad solder joints then. I would not operate the machine without going over the analog board and reflowing all of the joints with fresh solder. Random disconnecting components while powered on is a good way to end up with the analog board killing components and you'll have no screen at all. The Mac SE is going to have similar but worse problems because the analog board and power supply are separate, and both have issues with bad solder joints and capacitors failing, and will most definitely need to be recapped. You'll also need to open both machines up and remove the PRAM battery, as well as on the Power Macintosh if they haven't already started leaking. The Mac Plus may have a battery door on the back, but I'm not sure.

But the collection of machines and parts you have is worth quite a bit of money. They'd be worth more if you went through each of them and documented and/or repaired what was wrong with them. You can sell them as-is, but I would put the disclaimer "untested, sold for parts" if you sell them on somewhere like Ebay to lessen the headache of idiots buying said machines and hassling you with a return because it doesn't work.
 
Thanks for the tips! Yeah sorry, he thought he had a lot more than he actually did. Sorry for the confusion, but thanks for the help!
 
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